The Importance of Competence

Jim Antle stresses the need for conservatives to judge Republican politicians by what they are able to accomplish:

There is one more step in this evolution: evaluating whether conservatives are actually producing results. Too often, conservatives measure that by the volume of liberal outrage a Republican political figure inspires.

What Antle is talking about here is the need to place greater value on competence when selecting and judging candidates. If there has been one thing that has driven people away from the GOP in droves in the last decade, it is simple incompetence. When Republicans were in control, it is this incompetence that made poor policy decisions more likely, and it was incompetence that turned already bad policy decisions into disasters. Unfortunately, many post-2008 Republicans have placed more value on striking the right poses than on knowing what they’re doing in office or on learning what they don’t know, and their supporters have more often than not rewarded them for this.

Republicans have lost three of the last four elections, so they are in a much weaker position to deliver for their constituents than they were a decade ago. Of course, they are in that weaker position today because the party did such an abysmal job when it was in power, and many in the party still don’t understand why they lost in ’06 and ’08. Since then, the party has adopted an agenda that it cannot possibly advance until it controls both houses of Congress and the Presidency, but has not yet found a way to win the elections necessary to make that happen. In spite of this, the party’s ambitions have not changed. Losing the last election seems to have exhausted Republicans’ patience rather than forcing them to scale back their ambitions. Winning parties are often guilty of overreaching and imagining that they have an electoral mandate to advance their preferred agenda no matter what, but it is very unusual for a losing party to have the same delusions of grandeur.

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27 Responses to The Importance of Competence

What a wonderful last sentence. It is almost impossible to talk about the current Republicans without using the word “delusion” or “delusional.” They think Romney lost because he was too liberal. How many more beatings at the ballot box it will take to “dis-delusion” them remains to be seen. Losing the House next year would be a good start on the path to recovery.

One wonders if the Rs government shutdown is SAVING the administration on the web issues the healthcare exchanges are having. The idea of a competitive website selling insurance was potentially one of the stronger points of Obamacare and it was been a terrible roll-out even in states that supported the program.

GOPers have been mocking Pelosi ever since she supposedly said “we have to pass the bill (ACA/Obamacare) to see what’s in it”.

Are there not competent think tanks, health care specialists, insurance experts on the RIGHT who could have taken this bill apart, and explained to us rabble exactly what they see as its pitfalls?

There was certainly no shortage of donors available to the GOP to try to unseat Obama in ’12, why couldn’t these donors be hit up to fund such an effort?

Why is it that back in 1994 “Harry & Louise” asked each other cleverly contrived questions about Hillary’s major re-write of health care (in a series of commercials on national TV), and I have neither seen nor heard of any such effort against Obamacare?

Why AREN’T Big Pharma and Big Health Insurers railing against Obamacare to the same degree that they railed against Hillary’s plan? Why aren’t medical providers (or rather, their PACs) railing against this bill?
Why, pray tell, isn’t the GOP informing us rabble why none of the groups that condemned Hillary’s plan is saying squat about Obamacare ? It appears to me that any moderately competent bunch of would be leaders could have easily organized a revolt against the ACA if in fact they had done their homework.

@T. Sledge – the trouble is that once you start to pick apart the elements of Obamacare, you find that they are (a) often v sensible enhancements to healthcare delivery in the US, and (b) v popular the voting public.

Definitions of competence depend on what the actual goals are. It may be that there are still some “mainsteam” GOP pols who are horrified by what the TPers are up to – though I note that none of them have thus far stepped forward to sign onto a Discharge Petition in the House – but the extreme Right is very clear in its aims.

The extreme Right knows it cannot be electorally successful outside of its own safe territories in the deep Red states. TPers shut down even tentative efforts by slightly-more-mainstream Republicans to reach out to constituencies which the TP despises but which, alas, make up most of the nation’s citizenry.

They cannot win national elections. They cannot win elections outside their base. Upholding American political and economic norms means they will never have the power to restore their cherished “Lost America” of the 19th Century. (A dream shared by their bankrollers, as the NY Times story “A Federal Budget Crisis Months in the Planning” revealed.)

Very well: then American political and economic norms must be destroyed. Then, the Tea Party believes – and, more importantly, the Koch brothers, Heritage Foundation, Club for Growth, Americans for Prosperity, and Ed Meese believe – they can take their rightful place at the nation’s helm.

Sledge: because Obama is at one at the same time a communist anticolonial imposing a socialist agenda on the poor people of the United States, and in the pay of Big Insurance and of course Walmart who are the Only Beneficiaries of this communist boondoggle.

Bear in mind that by asking whether there are think tanks on the Right that could offer answers to Obamacare, you are answering your own question. Obamacare was a product of right-wing think tanks and Republican tacticians. They do not object to the details, or the taxes, so much as to the principle: how dare the communist anticolonial transfer money from non-socialist Medicare to socialist Obamacare? Make sense of that, you will make sense of Republican idiocy on this.

So let me guess this straight. Those of you who supported the administration in all of its ratherunhealthy programs for eight years. An castigated those of who not challenged the agndas but the rather lackluster plans, implemantation and performace are now laying claim to — competence a the key indicator.

So when conswervatives who created the state of the party currently and it is not the Tea Party – they were the shut outs.) and tghen jumped ship in some political pose of demonstarting they were not bigots like other Republicans — did so on the democratic candidates competence?

I am always quite surprisd by the back handed slaps by those in the know during the Bush admin who got nearly everything wrong attempt to castigate those who got t right –

first the series of noninterventionist peace nic articles and now the rebel, out of control newcomers with low strategic thinking skills, childish stubborness and now the turn of the screw to incompetence.

And it is that failure to old yourselvesacountable that a the rebes all but ignoring your leadership and guidance. It neverdawns on those described that just maybe — maybe — business as usual is what created the mustang’s you bemoan.

Collin, it wasn’t supposed to be a single website for half the states: states were supposed to set up their own. Unless they really couldn’t, and then the feds would step in. Instead, state after state intentionally avoided doing their bit, and so forced the federal site to have to serve way more people than expected.

The good news is that since we’re talking about coverage that isn’t going to start until January anyway, there’s no real harm in delays now, and it will all sort out over the next two months.

What Antle is talking about here is the need to place greater value on competence when selecting and judging candidates.

This runs counter to the democratic ideology of both parties, wherein we do not necessarily select panderers, but we use promises as primary credentials. Vote for me and I’ll vote for this; you should vote for me because I voted for this. “Competence” is adherence to promises which may or may not be realizable — and people who run email lists essentially decide what “success” is.

EliteCom, I don’t think anyone doubts that a small group of people can change the world. Gavrilo Princip and his friends, for example, had some specific ideas about how things should be different, and some specific grievances. The Japanese general staff had specific grievances and ideas that led them to think that the attack on Pearl Harbor would be a brushback, and keep the US from interfering with their plans for an East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere.

Stuff can spin out of control. That’s why you need ideas and plans, and need to have actually thought stuff through. Princip is a pretty good example here: whatever harm might be done on account of the ACA would be immediately dwarfed if the default is anything like even a Boehner type mainstream guys says it is. If there’s some reason to think that failure to pay bondholders, SS recipients, defense contractors, and employees the amounts already due them won’t be a really big deal (beyond the impact on the people not getting paid), well let’s see it from someone competent in the various arts involved in analyzing that situation.

First the two examples you sight both dealt with acts of violence and subtrafuge. I have yet to hear nor has there been any evidence that anhy member of the opposition is attemptingan manner of asassination, or a violent coup such as to murder any member of the US or topple the government or the admin.

Second the Japanese had a very intense plan of action. Whether they had consider te vast wealth of resurces in the US is another amter. Nonetheles, they had a plan.

Third Gavrilo Princip, was so assigned by the “Black Hand” an operational wing of the Serbian Intelligence also part of a rather elaborate plan.

You are attempting to make an argument of impending unintended consequences. As the result of a smll band of actors. Neither Japan nor Serbia qualify as a smal band of actors, but rather nation states with both purpose and plan.

I would note that a 17 Trillion deficit that the federal government canot pay is by all reality a default, Hence, extending the loan by raising the debt limit is hardly a strategy to resolve the matter. Having no plan to resolve the debt, nor pay down the interest or address the looming unfunded liabilities (unless I misunderstand what they are) means the actual deficit is above 80 trilion plus. Now eventually the US will hav to reconcile that debt despite that most is held by US treasury notes, because foreign lenders will eventually expect to paid, despite the faith and confidence they have in the US ability to call such a bluff by merely stating, “Come and get it if you can.” I don’t even think that federal pnsion plans are adressed as of yet.

Sothe talk of crisis and default with far reaching devestating consequences — I tend to doubt such hyperbole’ and not that I am pro defaulting. But I am eenly aware that a default really means that one must restructure and refinance — and I am not not all that destresed that federal government is forced to consider a more effective and effecient management plan. AndI have little dount that those most dependent on government for services would appreciate a more effective and effecient delivery of those services. Afterall cheaper and more effecient is beter for them.

Ah, the bond holder who upon calling in/cashing in said bond would not get paid because there is not enough cash on hand. To whit you will claim – ha. Not everyone cahed ther bonds all at once. For that I jave only one response. Suppose the system took anoth dip — people I such times want their cash. A sound mange system actually prepares for that contingency and having no cash available is indicative that of an ineffective strategic viable system.

Beter to force a showdown now and start ‘a settin’ things aright’ as to in response of some catastrophic event in which no repair is possible. Stopping gapping is scarey for any system, but if the patient is ill, the doctor requires that the patient be still so an examination can be made.

Your suggestiung that a run away train, with known bariers up ahead keep running so as to stay on an artificial schedule merely to ensure it’s reputation– a reputation by the way — quite known as dubious at the moment.

Just a not: the founders didn’t have a plan eitrher when they initially met. Many had no clue what the issues were. They had an idea what the issues for them as individuals — but what their states wanted — no clue. The founders disgred with whether there should even be talk about a seperation, despite the fact that hostilities had been on for a years. They fought their own consciences they fought each other and on occassion literally. They had no money. The colonists had not been trained for war. There were not eough weapons, shoes, clothes or food for that matter. They believed at any moment they would be rounded up and hanged. They had no clue what the future held –many had no intention of abandoning Britain. General Washington’s dispatches spoke of doom and gloom —

Yet inspite of having no economy and enormous debt they managed through. Depite the horrifying choice to maintain slaves in contradiction to the very cause of the war — some knowing that one day — there would be a reckoning. –Yet with no small fortune in their favor, some wisdom, and even a hand or two from providence — seeming to have graced the slavery for matterfor the tme — a nation was born.

It’s the 21st Century and the economic mechanisms of today are a far sight more robust than those of of 1776 in whuich the founders snuck in to the camber to sign the declaration eachtricklingin at diffrerent times so as to void being caught as a traitor.

Good grief — Have a litle courage. While I am not pro a default. The US is not going to collapse — unless that is we gnore what has collapsed every great power — a debt so large thatis blleds it citizens l’est te citizens are no ore — but in collusion with the ‘barbarians’ at the gate.

The US is built on unintended consequences and events seemingly spinning out of control.

“I would note that a 17 Trillion deficit that the federal government canot pay is by all reality a default.”

The usual confusion about the situation of a currency user versus a currency issuer is going on here, but I wonder: could a debt default be the event which finally awakens the populace at large to the reality of the monetary system? Which at present is, “MMT for the rulers and Austrian Economics for the rest of us.”

“Too often, conservatives measure that by the volume of liberal outrage a Republican political figure inspires.”

As a card-carrying Krugman liberal, I’d say this is spot-on. Think of how much the right-wing base loves Sarah Palin, one of the least competent major pols in recent history. Why? They think she drives liberals crazy. I dunno, I think we just point and laugh at her, when we give her any thought at all, at least after the 2008 election.

But as long as the right-wing in this country is more of an infotainment business than a political organization with a coherent philosophy, we’re just going to get politicians who can crack the outrage dial up to 10, rather than ones who can implement an agenda.

EliteComm, there’s a bit of the underpants gnomes in your take on the plan. If the debt ceiling is breached, then there won’t be enough money to make payments as they come do. Some people are not going to be paid — whether it’s bondholders, SS recipients, contractors, whoever. How do you get from there to a renegotiated anything? What good is messing with those people’s expectations, and the economy (which is where that federal money goes) going to do? If the debt is such a big problem, how is making interest rates higher supposed to solve it?

“I would note that a 17 Trillion deficit that the federal government canot pay is by all reality a default.”

By this measure, the fact that 95% of people couldn’t pay their mortgage off in one shot would mean they’re all in default as well.

Yeah, in the long run, we need to lower the debt for our own good, but it should be a second level concern after we lower unemployment and should be done via tax reform (by eliminating and refoming tax expenditures like the deduction for morthage interest) and sane reform of entitlements (ie. lifting the FICA cap), not by cutting Food Stamps and infrastructure spending.

If there has been a decrease in competence among elected officials, of both parties, I think blame may be laid at the feet of the political primary system, which has supplanted the system of party caucuses. Under the latter, even the machine patronage system, young office seekers couldn’t even get near being placed on the ballot as their party’s nominee unless they proved to their betters they were intelligent, knowledgeable and competent to do the job. Then there would be a contest among legitimate contenders based upon their charisma, their persuasiveness, their pedigree, that would help the party to answer the question, “Who is more likely to win this election?”

Now the political process is all about appearances, about who projects well to the public, or even just that small segment of the public that make up that party’s primary voters, who are looking only for someone who tells them what they want to hear, and pushes the most buttons while doing so. The candidates with these qualities will beat competence every time, and now that includes long serving incumbent politicians of the same party as well.

Part of the problem of incumbents being jettisoned, particularly in the Republican Party, is a seventy year record of failure in rolling back the New Deal and ever growing welfare/warfare state. But this may be resolved by selecting shrewder, more determined candidates from among the ranks of those with proven competence. I don’t think it will be done without the abandonment of party primaries in favor of the system of caucus vetting and selection of candidates.

What the extreme right wing seems to be doing right now is trying to nullify the election. If their whole concept is that if Obama cared about the country, he’d defund Obamacare, then what? Where does it end? If it’s “reasonable” for the Tea Party wing of the GOP to do this, when why wouldn’t they add as their ever growing list of demands that Obama instantly make an Executive Decision to appoint Ted Cruz President and immediately resign? And why wouldn’t they turn around and say that if Obama doesn’t resign and appoint Ted Cruz President, then he clearly doesn’t care about the country? Where does this stop? You seem to be a reasonable group of people. I’m liberal with some things, conservative with others, I consider myself to be a centrist Democrat. I think this is dangerous precedent.

“Winning parties are often guilty of overreaching and imagining that they have an electoral mandate to advance their preferred agenda no matter what, but it is very unusual for a losing party to have the same delusions of grandeur.” DL

England managed a national debt that was 250% of GDP twice and spent almost 50 years with a debt at over 200% of GDP. It has had a a debt below 100% in the last 100 years only 50% of the time.
To all the chicken littles: the sky is not falling.

It should be noted that Congress has to satisfy enough of its base to win elections, and to satisfy enough of its lobbyists to garner enough contributions to fund their campaigns. Nowhere does it mean they actually have to accomplish anything.

Losing the last election seems to have exhausted Republicans’ patience rather than forcing them to scale back their ambitions. Winning parties are often guilty of overreaching and imagining that they have an electoral mandate to advance their preferred agenda no matter what, but it is very unusual for a losing party to have the same delusions of grandeur.

The simple answer to that is that Republicans don’t think they lost. They’ve never considered Obama’s victories legitimate. Listen to their rhetoric: conservatives see themselves as the aggrieved victims of liberal conspiracies to steal elections. The modern GOP knows perfectly well how much they have to manipulate voting rolls, turnout and polling to win, and cannot imagine Democrats doing anything different.

“How do you get from there to a renegotiated anything? What good is messing with those people’s expectations, and the economy (which is where that federal money goes) going to do? If the debt is such a big problem, how is making interest rates higher supposed to solve it?”

I had no idea gnomes wore underpants. Funy. But perhaps that is your point. Though why that descriptor is applicable here is beyond me.

1. Interest rates are set by the fed. And I asume that you mean another ding on the credit rating will cause interest rates to jump. I don’t think they jumped that mch the last time and I doubt they wil this round either. But if they did, it would cause a slow in borrowing. An while I am all for the free flow of cash, excessive borrowing via low interest rates on nonavailable cash is why the budget and deficit scenario is a mess. Apparently and sadly the federal government is hardly troubled by high interest rates and as the lenders to the US generally have kept interest rates low — I think a jumpt would be a the tangible alarm we desperately need. Because ourlenders can rais interest rates any time they choose. And speaking of interest rates, the deficit of which you speak is just the principle. If we ad the total interst rates that deficit is more than doubled, though it has been a while since I did the numbers – it may be much much higher — I think I am being generous–

I want people to get paid. I am keenly aware that for many people that check is just a step away from real problems. I have lived in my car. I have been flat out skint. I have been on the brink and over it. So I am keenly aware of the pain — but what people shopuld be asking and demandi ng is that federal government get their ducketts in order so as to avoid a real collapse in the system, not temporarily delays. It’s high time people got upset about the state of their finances and the shoddy maner in which the feds are squandering it.

The people of the US are not stupid. And while they may feel the pressure they wil do what they have always done when push comes to shove — work with each other to make it work. I may have to borrow a cup of sugar from my neighbor or some money from a someone and thos expecting a payment for rent or a bill — will adjust to the reality ofwhat is hapening. The economy will slow, but at least it will slow for reasons which comprehensible. It’s high time we did what Americans have not one but are very capable of doing — think long term — andI don’t think we are so immature to think that we can blithely go on as we have.

Your comment on negotiations — I have never known a situation, among any financial body in which one could not negotiate. Suppose the default ocurred. Just what stops Congress and the executive from negotiating? Nothing? Most companies survive a restructruing and refinance plans — it’s high time we got busy.

“Unfortunately, many post-2008 Republicans have placed more value on striking the right poses than on knowing what they’re doing in office or on learning what they don’t know, and their supporters have more often than not rewarded them for this.”

Post-2008? This is a post-2008 Republican thing?

Remember back in 2000 how Republicans placed more value on George W. Bush being the guy you’d want to have a beer with than on any competence he had?

Republicans have been valuing the hat over the cattle for a lot longer than you admit.